Re: Database design and Class::DBI

I don’t think the database is well designed, but I know the database design is not from you. ;-)

I can understand why there are three tables, and I actually agree that’s a must, if you want to make the price-product info fully normalized.

But the data in price-type table should be only used for two purposes:

As a data integration reference, we can use it to check and make sure all price-id’s in all other tables are valid, i.e. there is row in this table for that price-id.
Store the visual presentation for each price-id, for example, if you want to print some report, instead of showing the less meaningful price-id, you may want to show the price type.

But to use price-type as part of unique keys elsewhere is a bad idea. Only price-id should be used for that purpose.

In the product-price table, instead of storing price-type, should storing price-id, and form unique index together with product-id.

Comment on Re: Database design and Class::DBI

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Re: Re: Database design and Class::DBI by iburrell (Chaplain) on Mar 05, 2003 at 22:01 UTC
I am Ovid's coworker and this part of the database was designed by me. The product_prices table does store the price_id and uses (product_id, price_id) as the primary key. It wouldn't be normalized otherwise. The name in price_types is only used for display purposes.	[reply]
Re(3): Database design and slackers by Ovid (Cardinal) on Mar 05, 2003 at 22:02 UTC
Hey, slacker! Get back to work! Sheesh. How are we going to get anything done if you're playing on Perlmonks all day? ;) Cheers, Ovid New address of my CGI Course. Silence is Evil (feel free to copy and distribute widely - note copyright text)	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Database design and Class::DBI by pg (Canon) on Mar 05, 2003 at 22:35 UTC
Okay, then I don’t have a single problem with the database design. (Scary, the guy did the database design is also here, good I didn’t say any thing too strong ;-). To be serious, I don’t have problem with your database design, I said those all because of Ovid’s typos …Well, he is a good guy made couple small typos ;-) Good to talk to you. Perl rules.	[reply]